


You Have My Heart

by klmeri



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Community: jim_and_bones, Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Valentine's Day, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-11 22:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1178542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klmeri/pseuds/klmeri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three standalone stories written for jim_and_bones' Sweethearts Challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'm Yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'M YOURS: Sometimes, underneath that veneer of bravado, Jim just needs to be reminded that he's got someone who loves him no matter what. And maybe Leonard does, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Matching story is the [Bones' POV](http://caera1996.livejournal.com/55716.html) by **caera1996**.

On the day after Jim Kirk meets Leonard McCoy on the shuttle in the Riverside shipyard, Jim shows up at a recently vacated dorm room at the precise moment Leonard is about to let himself into his new home. Without preamble, he slings an arm around the man's shoulders and says, "I will be the best roommate you've ever had."

"What?" is all Leonard can reply, clearly too preoccupied with trying to figure out if Jim has the magical ability to appear in hallways or if the guy had been following him the entire time.

"You're going to love me," Jim insists, then punches in their door's security code and breezes into their room.

~~~

" _Booones_ ," a man slurs as he is dragged from a chair in the hospital's waiting area to an examination room by a grumbling man in white. The other medical personnel simply shake their heads at the sight, for it isn't the first time Dr. McCoy has treated a patient so disrespectfully.

"For god's sake, Jim, what did you do? Stick your head in a blender?"

"You should see the other guy."

"Sit down," Leonard growls and lets his friend drop backwards onto a metal table. He proceeds to glare down at a padd and stabs at its screen with his finger. "No recently updated blood-work panel. You allergic to anything, kid?"

Jim squints his un-swollen eye. "Erm, dunno." He spies a tray nearby. "Hey, painkillers! Painkillers would be _great_ , man. Load me up."

Leonard rolls his eyes ceiling-ward but pops a new clip into a hypospray. "First things first. This should make you sober. Now hold still."

"Yessir," comes the obedient reply as Leonard rolls up Jim's shirt sleeve. "I swear I'll be the best patient you've e—" Leonard jabs him a little too hard with the hypospray. "— _ver_ had. Ow," Jim protests, then grins stupidly. "You're going to love me, Bones."

All he gets in response is a huff and a second hypospray shot to the sensitive juncture of his neck and shoulder that makes him see double. 

"Awesome," he says at the same time Leonard— _both_ Leonards grab at his toppling form.

~~~

Three and a half years later, a newly re-christened starship and her youngest captain prepare to leave the space dock orbiting Earth at top warp. Jim, seeming very at-home in his captain's chair, activates the line between the bridge and Sickbay. "Bones, strapped in yet?"

A sour voice replies, "Is that supposed to be funny?"

"Relax, old man," Jim tells his friend, "I'll be the best captain you've ever had." He smirks for the benefit of his eavesdropping bridge crew. "You're going to love me."

~~~

"Don't let him up," Jim orders. He bends over to look his CMO in the face while Sulu and Spock pin the struggling man down on either side. McCoy is sweating, sneering, and generally scaring the shit out of the remaining members of the landing party. The look in his eyes is so un-Bones-like, it gives Jim a minor heart attack.

"Bones," he coaxes. "Bones, calm down."

Leonard jerks his head up and tries to take off the end of Jim's nose with a snap of his teeth.

"Captain," Spock interjects, "I do not believe he can be reasoned with in this state."

As Leonard, fuelled by whatever 'deity' a clan of humanoids had let inhabit his body, nearly lifts Sulu off the ground in his rage, Jim joins his officers in holding McCoy down and demands, "How much longer?"

"Until sunrise," Sulu supplies, voice strained.

Leonard twists and bucks and continues his unnatural growling. 

Jim grips his friend's shoulders until his knuckles turn white and drops his forehead to the man's chest, both weary and afraid. 

_Bones,_ he prays soundlessly, _come back. Please. You were right. We shouldn't have come down here. I promise I'll be a better listener—the best listener you've ever had. If you just... come back._

There is no point in thinking or saying _You're going to love me_. 

This mindless, angry creature under him knows nothing of love.

~~~

He has had fevers before but this one is the worst. He manages to crawl partway inside the bathroom despite how dizzy he is before passing out. Probably Spock finds him like that hours later, face-down in his own drool and sweat. He recalls the rest of the events in hazy impressions: noise, voices, lights, and insufferable heat. Always and forever the heat.

Leonard tells Jim during one of his rare, lucid moments that he has contracted Vegan choriomenigitis. Jim might have replied, "Put that on my tombstone." He can't remember.

They knocked him out for three days, he is later told. Bones doesn't use the word _coma_ but Jim recognizes what goes unsaid. Apparently he came very close to dying on his biobed.

"But I'm good now," he half-jokes to the pinched and tired-looking face of his doctor.

"For now," Leonard agrees too slowly. 

The second time he wakes up, feeling much stronger than before, M'Benga is at his bedside instead of McCoy. 

Jim has a moment of panic in which he thinks he has passed on the virus to Leonard, but M'Benga assures him they had him in a proper quarantine from start to finish. Dr. McCoy needs his own rest, he is informed, per the orders of the First Officer. 

Jim silently commends Spock for sticking to that decision in light of Leonard's temper.

"I'll ask you a few routine questions, Captain," M'Benga goes on to say now that Jim is placated and in the right frame of mind to respond. He asks after Jim's pain level, his appetite, and any memories surrounding his treatment. Jim replies to all of those questions as best he can.

But a small something which concerns him he keeps to himself... because who knows, when a man is dying, if what he sees hallucination or reality?

At his most feverish, his Leonard or a dream-Leonard had tried to soothe him, had said things like " _You're the best friend I've ever had_ " and " _Now tell me I'm going to love you, Jim. Tell me that, and I will tell you I already do._ "

Jim closes his eyes after M'Benga is gone and thinks, _I wish you did love me, Bones._

~~~

"Brat."

"Grump."

"Jackass."

Jim raises his middle finger to his companion. "Asshole." Then he glances to his left. "C'mon, Spock. We're playing the name-game."

"If you are referring to your insults of each other, I would rather not."

" _Vulcan_ ," Leonard shoots over Jim's head.

"Indeed," agrees Spock, who then says no more.

Jim adjusts the swath of fabric around his head. His nose hurts from sunburn, and his legs hate him. 

They have to carry on.

"He's too goddamn comfortable in this environment," Leonard gripes on Jim's right. "Like a lizard. A green, cold-blooded lizard."

"Bones."

"What? I'm dying here, Jim—we both are! If sunstroke doesn't get us, dehydration will. Probably not before the pustules burst on our feet and get infected and—"

Jim whirls on McCoy and slaps a hand over his mouth. "Enough!" he cries. "You may be the best doctor the Fleet's ever had but _enough already_. I'm not going to love you anymore if I have to hear of all the gruesome ways I'm going to die!"

Leonard starts to say something, only to look cross-eyed at Jim's hand against his mouth and rip it away. "Blugh, disgusting, Jim." Then, "What was that second part?"

Jim frowns at him. "Second part?"

Spock states matter-of-factly, "I believe the Captain declared his affection for you."

Jim's ears turn bright red. Thankfully they are covered up by his headwrap. "What? No!" he denies, turning partly toward Spock to show the stupid Vulcan how betrayed he is by this remark.

Leonard narrows his eyes.

"Look!" Jim declares, tossing out his arm in a random direction. "Civilization! We're saved!"

Leonard turns to look, shielding his eyes from the sun. Jim tries to figure out how far he can run before Spock gets annoyed, stuns him with a phaser and drags him back to their three-person group to die of embarrassment.

"Huh," Leonard says, sounding pleased.

Spock follows up with an infinitesimal hint of relief in his "Let us proceed" and starts forward, Leonard on his heels.

"Hey, wait!" Jim calls, surprised, and catches up to them. "Where are we going?"

"To the settlement, Captain," Spock replies.

Jim squints. "That's a rock, a lot of colored... rocks?"

"He needs glasses," Leonard tells Spock, "because he's allergic to the corrective treatment, and laser surgery is a temporary solution to a permanent problem... but of course he won't sign the damn form for them."

"If you submit the form to me, Doctor, I will approve it."

"I appreciate that, Spock."

Jim trudges along behind them, not certain if it is a good or bad thing that the two men are suddenly getting along.

~~~

If Jim had thought at any point he had escaped the nosiness of Leonard McCoy, he turns out to be wrong.

"Got a question for you," the man says, giving Jim's cabin entrance a perfunctory knock. 

Jim stops rubbing at his eyes and puts a padd aside. "Ship's business?"

"Nope."

This isn't an abnormal thing to Jim, so he waves the man toward his desk. "Shoot."

"How much do you love me?"

Jim falls out of his chair in the process of placing his feet on his desk. Then, in his attempt not to come across as a complete and utter clumsy fool, he hits his head on the underside of his desk.

Bones drags him away from the furniture and not to Jim's surprise at all starts waving a tricorder around Jim's head.

"You're lucky you've got a thick skull," McCoy concludes, "and that I came prepared."

"Prepared?"

"For you to run into stuff," Leonard explains.

Jim is fairly certain he has just been insulted. He pushes none-too-gently at the man next to him, then climbs to his feet with the claim "It's your fault for surprising me!"

Leonard stands as well and lays the tricorder down on Jim's desk. "So back to the question."

Jim's palms start to sweat. "Uh, hit my head harder than I thought. Did you ask me something?"

"Don't play the innocent with me, kid."

"Totally not playing you, Bones!" Jim laughs. 

Leonard tilts his head in a disturbingly Vulcan kind of way. "You seem nervous."

"I'm not nervous!"

Leonard indicates the little beads of sweat that have popped out on Jim's forehead. "Then are you overheated, Jim?"

When there is no escape, Jim is very good at improvising. "Yes! Really overheated. In fact, I'm gonna go take a shower. A cold shower, because I can totally do that. Water 'n all." He grins too widely. "Captain's privileges."

"Okay," Leonard agrees too easily. "I'll just wait here." He locks his hands behind his back and looks about the room with faux-curiosity. "Should warn you, though. Spock's locked his side of the bathroom."

Jim can hack it.

"You can't hack it," Leonard adds, "completely before I hypo you. We did a trial run."

"You're in this _together?_ " Jim boggles at the notion.

Leonard shrugs a little. "Spock thinks it's more efficient for the ship if you stop pining after me. Also, he really doesn't like getting involved with emotions, and he knew I wouldn't stop pestering him until he helped me sort this out."

Jim's brain started fizzling somewhere around the part where Leonard defined Jim's feelings as 'pining'. Because he is, he realizes, pining after his best friend.

"Shit," he says.

"Shit good, or shit bad?" Leonard wants to know.

Jim finds a chair and drops into it. "It depends. Am I about to ruin our friendship if I admit that I love you?"

Something sparks in Leonard's eyes, but he doesn't move forward and his voice is too contained for Jim to read much into it. "We're friends, Jim. I doubt anything could change that."

"I don't know," Jim expresses his doubt. "I am really good at being short-sighted. And stupid." He lifts his shoulders slightly. "Sometimes conceited?"

"Arrogant," Leonard amends. "Foolhardy. Thoughtless. And ridiculously irritating."

Jim makes a face.

"But you're also selfless, kind, courageous, steadfast, and fair-minded. I'd say that's a nice balance."

"I think you think too highly of me, Bones."

Leonard comes to him, then. "Jim, how much do you love me?"

Jim sighs noiselessly. "Too much."

"Good," says Leonard, "because I also love you more than can possibly be healthy. I figure that's a start for us both."

Jim resists the urge to reach out and grab Leonard's hand. Perhaps sensing this, Leonard offers his hand to Jim. Jim takes it, grateful for the connection. It anchors him. 

With a wry twist to his mouth, Leonard snorts softly. "You're going to love me, kid."

"Moot point," Jim counters, rising to his feet. "I already do."

_-Fini_


	2. Why Not?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WHY NOT: During academy days, Jim and Leonard used to play a game they called "Why Not." Some of the Why Nots were things like: fly a kite in the Golden Gate Park; climb the tree outside Captain Pike's office and attach something silly to his window; order a different color drink in every bar on one block. Just silly, stupid stuff. Once aboard the Enterprise, the practice kind of dies out until one Valentine's Day. And then what happens?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Companion piece of Bones' POV for this prompt written by sullacat over [here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/SHC_2014/works/1251847)!

There have been a lot of why-nots in Jim Kirk's life. Mostly, they make him look impulsive, reckless and often stupid; but his rule of thumb has always been: don't give a flying fuck. So he doesn't, not when he kisses Iowa goodbye at the age of seventeen, sending in the rest of his senior year testing (all completed and one-hundred percent accurate) as a message of 'see, I don't need to be here' then taking off with a group of city-hoppers to see what life is all about, and not when he comes rolling back into Iowa at the age of twenty-three having seen too much of the underbelly of carefree living.

It isn't until he joins Starfleet and meets Leonard McCoy (Bones, his Bones) that the why-nots settle down into something less harmful to himself and closer to mischievous and fun. He kind of wishes he had thought to use the why-nots that way in the first place. Maybe there is a reason, he sometimes thinks, that he had to experience the uglier side of his destiny first before he could live its better half.

Or maybe everything good about life is simply due to the arrival of Bones.

It occurs to Jim, then, that he needs to come up with the most important why-not of his life—and he has to get Leonard McCoy to agree to it. The trouble is that they haven't made time for a why-not in so long Jim is uncertain if Leonard still appreciates the game.

Well, he decides, there is a way around that too.

~~~

Jim starts simple. He places an order with Botany. "This is a highly confidential matter," he tells them.

"What do you need us to do, sir?" they ask, instantly snapping to attention, for it isn't often that the Captain visits the department with such a solemn request.

"Flowers," Jim says. "I need flowers."

They blink.

"And I need them sent to the head of Sickbay anonymously—" He pauses to clear his throat. "—with this card." Jim presents a small white square to the nearest botanist.

The woman takes it carefully and reads it aloud. " _Why not accept a flower from an admirer?_ "

All four botanists blush at the same time.

Jim straightens and locks his hands behind his back in an unconscious imitation of his First Officer and asks in his most serious tone, "Can you do it?"

"Oh yeah," another botanists replies. "But only because you're the captain, Captain. Now what kind of flowers do you want the, ah, recipient to get?"

Jim thinks for a moment. "Exotic," he settles on.

The group nods as though Jim has made the best possible choice. Jim leaves them to the task, knowing he is in good hands.

~~~

Jim is alternating between bites of salad and dessert when the table at which he is sitting rattles to signify the arrival of his CMO, who drops heavily into the empty seat beside him.

Because Leonard looks harried, Jim comments, "I thought you were too busy to come to lunch."

In response, Leonard slaps a palm down on the tabletop, startling several other people in the mess hall badly enough that they drop their utensils. When Leonard removes his hand, Jim is staring down at a white card with a familiar typeset.

Leonard's harried expression turns into a glower. "Busy, Jim? I was in a war zone! Somebody thought it was a good idea to stick sentient plant life in my office."

Jim swallows a mouthful of lettuce before he chokes on it. "So it wasn't a good idea?"

"It, by which I mean _Gertrude_ —that's what Sulu crooned to the damn thing when I told him to come get it or I'd set it on fire—tried to bite me and ate all of my styluses. What do you think?"

"Uh, it's the thought that counts?"

"When I find out who did this, I'll show 'em what counts," Leonard replies darkly.

Jim shifts uncomfortably in his seat and slides the rest of his dessert over to Leonard. "Sorry."

Leonard looks at him strangely, as if to ask _for what?_ but soon decides there is a much more interesting issue at hand. "Is this cake? How did you get this, Jim?"

"From the replicator?" Jim reaches out with his fork to scoop up some icing. Even replicator-made, it's still plenty sweet.

"I was very specific with your meal card, Captain. It didn't include chocolate cake."

 _Red alert_ , Jim thinks. 

"Spock?" he calls, craning his neck around to look behind him. "Would you look at that? I think my First is trying to tell me to get my ass to the Bridge. Gotta go!"

Leonard frowns and looks too. "I don't see—"

But Jim is already well on his way to his escape, the last of the cake slice in his hand.

~~~

"This is important, Scotty."

Jim's Chief Engineer makes a noise of agreement but doesn't look any less wary. "Aye, Captain," he says. "When it comes to a man's drink, it's _always_ important."

Jim can guess where this conversation is headed. "Look, I'm not asking for details here. Whoever your supplier is, that's between you and him. Just get me the good stuff." 

Behind Scotty lurks Keenser, whose unblinking stare has unnerved Jim since the beginning of their conversation. Now, as Jim brings up the subject of supplier, Keenser melts into a nearby shadow like he was never really there. Jim thinks he should be the one who proceeds with caution.

Scotty clears his throat and prompts, "The good stuff being?"

"Bourbon."

The man's eyes widen. "Is this for—?"

" _Yes_ ," Jim hisses, cutting him off. He pulls out a card. "Leave it in his quarters along with this, okay?"

As Scotty reads the message, his surprise morphs into a disturbing kind of amusement. The man tsks to himself. 

Jim hopes they don't have to drag this conversation out any more than necessary. He is now officially afraid of what else Scotty might say.

But all Scotty does is murmur, "Done," and pocket the card.

"The price?" Jim wants to know.

"I'll let you know," Scotty assures him before walking away.

~~~

The difficult part is waiting because Jim is, in general, an impatient man once he has decided on a course of action. So he waits and waits, and when the expected call doesn't come, he heads to McCoy's quarters on his own.

Leonard is obviously startled to find Jim outside his quarters. "Something up, kid?" he asks when their eyes meet.

Jim shakes his head in the negative and smiles brightly. "Aren't you going to invite me in, Bones?"

With a slight shrug, Leonard steps aside. 

"I thought I would stop by to see how things are. We've both been too busy lately for our usual—" Jim stops talking almost immediately once he realizes Leonard is not alone.

"Greetings, Captain."

"Spock," Jim replies, slowly taking in the scene. Spock, seated at the only table in Leonard's room, is nearest the bottle of bourbon which had cost Jim a five-year subscription to an exclusive engineering journal. There are also two shot glasses on the table, both of them full.

Jim sinks his teeth into his bottom lip to keep from saying something he shouldn't.

"Want a drink?" Leonard offers, moving towards the table. "It's good stuff."

"I know," Jim replies faintly. At Spock's inquiring look, he indicates the label of the bottle. "That's a rare brand—and not one I would have thought to see on a starship, Bones."

"Ain't it, though? It's the darnedest thing... It was just waiting for me when I got off shift."

Too casually, Jim circles the table and picks up a crinkled white card. He reads, " _Why not share a drink with someone who cares?_ ...I see. So you called Spock."

Leonard bursts out laughing.

Spock does not look particularly perturbed by this amusement at his expense. "As I believe you are well-aware, Captain, I do not partake of such beverages."

"I've been trying to get him to have a sip anyway. He's damn stubborn."

"It is not I who is persistent, Dr. McCoy. I believe, however, we have discussed all that was necessary. I shall take my leave now." He stands up, locking his hands behind his back and moves toward the door.

Jim's disappointment dissipates. "Spock, wait. Stay. Clearly I am the intruder here. I'll go."

"Captain, I would not seek to deprive you of your time with Dr. McCoy."

"And you're not," Jim argues. "Finish your conversation with Bones. I can—"

"Oh, knock it off, both of you," interrupts the man in question, who pulls out a chair and sits down. "Somebody help me finish this bottle."

"On it," Jim instantly nominates himself, finding himself a chair.

"Gentlemen, gift or not, is it wise to imbibe the entire contents of a highly alcoholic concoction before a shift change?"

"What's the matter, Spock? Afraid we'll get too drunk and embarrass ourselves?"

"You could keep an eye on us," Jim points out.

For some reason, this makes Leonard snicker into his shot glass. "He'd never. Drunk humans offend his delicate sensibilities."

Spock returns to his abandoned chair and sits down as well. 

Jim declares on Spock's behalf, "Challenge accepted!" Both he and Leonard laugh in delight.

There is a glimmer in Spock's eyes which could be akin to amusement.

 _He's finally loosening up_ , Jim thinks, pleased, and raises his shot glass in a toast. "To the Enterprise. To good times."

"To friends," Leonard adds.

They both down their shots, and Spock pours each of them a second round.

~~~

"I can do zat!" Pavel Chekov tells Jim earnestly, clutching a white card and a heart-shaped box filled with various delectable candies.

"Great, thank you!" Jim expresses with equal enthusiasm. "Just make certain he doesn't see you."

" _Da_." Chekov turns for the door but stops short. "Sir?"

"Yes?"

"Why do you not simply tell Dr. McCoy that you like him?"

Jim tries to explain his reasoning. "It's... well, the card tells him."

Chekov frowns at the card. "But it only has a question and no name."

"It's complicated," Jim says, "and kind of... special. Just between Bones and me."

Chekov doesn't look entirely convinced but he does not ask any other questions. More importantly, as he goes, he seems willing enough to help Jim win Leonard over.

~~~

Pavel comes back less than an hour later, his distress palpable. "I'm sorry, Keptin," he apologizes over and over again.

Jim, feeling terrible that his youngest officer and friend feels terrible, puts a comforting arm around the man's narrow shoulders. "What happened?"

Pavel scratches at a red spot on his neck. He seems to be sweating, Jim notices. 

To re-focus Chekov's attention, Jim adds a tiny bit of steel to his voice. "What _happened_?"

"I got caught—I zink."

"You think?"

"When ze doctor saw me putting ze box on his desk, I said I had just found zem and was curious." Pavel scratches more furiously at his neck. "But, but I do not zink he believed me! Am I going to die?" He looks at Jim, his eyes round and questioning.

Pressing his mouth into a flat line, Jim pulls Pavel's hand away from his neck. "Did he say what shot he gave you?"

"Witamins?"

Jim winces. "Yeah, okay. It'll itch like hell for a few days."

Pavel covers the spot again and looks more distressed. "About ze message, Keptin... He threw it away."

Jim sighs soundlessly. "It's okay," he tells Chekov. "Thank you for trying."

"But your question..."

Jim takes Chekov's face between his hands. "You did what you could, Pavel. At ease." He drops his hands. "Someone will cover your shift. I suspect you are going to feel sleepy in a few minutes anyway. Might as well go rest up."

Pavel nods and, head bowed, accepts his dismissal.

Jim sighs again and murmurs to himself, "Ah, Bones..."

~~~

Over the next few days, Jim continues to drop hints with little white cards and various gifts. Leonard seems oblivious or just downright unaffected until the day he storms Jim's quarters to announce, "I have a stalker."

Jim pauses with his shirt around his head. "What?"

" _Stalker_ ," Leonard repeats. "At first I thought it was Pavel but he tucks his tail between his legs if I even glance in his direction. So it's somebody sneakier... and somebody who knows me pretty well."

Jim finishes pulling down his top. "Then it must be someone you know."

"Maybe." Leonard huffs and drags a hand through his hair. "I just don't get what they want. I don't need presents, and I sure as hell don't need a _person_."

Jim turns away. "Is that all you came to say? Because I was about to visit the gym."

"Oh," Leonard says, "sorry. I thought... never mind. See you later?" But he doesn't wait for a response, instead moving toward the door through which he had just recently barrelled.

Jim turns and takes a hold of Leonard's arm to stall him. "Bones, hold on a minute. It could just be an infatuation, you know. It's that time of year."

Leonard stares at him.

"Valentine's," Jim clarifies.

"Valen— _oh_. Well I guess. But you know I haven't celebrated that since..." Looking uncomfortable, he doesn't finish the sentence.

Bu then again he doesn't have to finish it when speaking to Jim. Jim nods in understanding. "Sorry you're having a time of it, Bones. I'll see what I can do."

"I doubt there is anything you can do, unless you know who wants to drive me crazy."

Jim smiles slightly. "Never underestimate the power of a starship captain."

Leonard covers Jim's hand with his own, just briefly, before patting it. "Thanks, kid. Even if you can't do much, thanks. I knew I could count on you."

Jim lets him go. When the cabin door slides shut behind Leonard, Jim drops his chin to his chest and curses succinctly, "Shit."

~~~

_Why not?_ Jim ponders later that night, eyes closed. _Why not me, Bones?_ He wishes he had an answer. He wishes even more he could ask the question.

Jim's eyes fly open, and he sits up in bed. Simmering with excitement, he goes to his desk and opens a drawer, pulling out a small supply of cardstock he had recently acquired. Forgoing the computer altogether, he carries the stack back to his sleeping cabin. On a shelf by his bed is an unadorned box. Inside it he keeps small treasures—gifts and mementos from family and friends and long-ago adventures. Inside is something he has never used before out of fear he would never have another like it once it stopped working.

Now seems to be the appropriate time to take the risk. Jim retrieves the ball-point pen and, holding it carefully between forefinger and thumb, goes to work.

~~~

There are things to know about Leonard. One of them is that you don't catch him unawares in public or shit hits the fan in a major way. (Jim doesn't really want an audience, so he is okay with conceding this point.) The other thing is that you don't come at him on his home ground. It makes Leonard McCoy very, _very_ prickly and, as Pavel so unfortunately discovered, it makes him vengeful.

Thus, Jim asks his CMO to meet him in the Ready Room during the middle of a regular shift and promptly hands over the conn to Spock.

Though it takes merely minutes for Leonard to arrive, to Jim it feels like hours. He catches himself in three separate instances of starting to pace the length of the room and has to tell himself to calm down. To give nothing away. This is the confrontation where confidence matters most.

McCoy enters the Ready Room with a cautious "Captain?" Maybe Leonard expected a meeting to already be in progress; his expression is fairly surprised when he finds Jim standing alone. 

Jim smiles and steps toward him. Wordlessly, he brings the stack of white cards out from behind his back and offers the topmost one to his friend.

"What's this about?" Leonard wants to know as he takes the card. Once he glances down at it, the look on his face changes to one of recognition.

The simple question is: _Why not?_

"Jim... what is this?"

Jim hands him the second card. 

_Why not need someone who knows what you like?_

Leonard opens his mouth, but makes no sound, then closes his mouth into a grim line when Jim offers him the next card.

_Why not need someone who cares about you?_

"...So it was you?" Leonard asks softly, meeting his eyes.

Jim gives him another one.

_Why not need someone who can make you laugh?_

A hint of something different, distraught, comes and goes in Leonard's eyes.

Jim holds out the next card.

_Why not need someone who needs you back?_

Leonard snaps. "Enough already! Jim, I don't—I didn't—" The man takes a steadying breath, then mutters a curse as if Jim has proceeded to frustrate him beyond measure. " _Damn_."

When Jim tries to give him yet another card, his friend refuses to take it. Closing the last of the distance between them, Jim concedes this part of the battle and instead lifts the card up for the man to see.

 _If someone can do all these things, why not?_ The two words are underlined twice.

Leonard pushes the card aside. "What are you really asking me?"

Jim's next card has a smiley face and _Isn't it obvious?_

Leonard glances down at the five cards in his hand before seeming to make up his mind. "You should have said something yesterday."

_I couldn't say anything last time because you had it in your mind that you hated me._

"What?" The word is sharp. "My god, man, I don't hate you."

_If you hate the admirer, you hate me._

"That's the worst logic I've ever heard!"

Jim almost pulls out the card _I am well-versed in logic_ but decides against it. With half the battle over, he tucks the remainder of the cards away and cocks his head like he expects Leonard to make the next move.

Bones is nervous, that much Jim can see. And he won't make a move because he doesn't think he has any to make.

Good.

"More one question," Jim tells him, noticing that when he speaks, Leonard jumps a little. "Then you can go."

"All right," says Leonard.

"It's a question I asked myself," Jim adds.

"I said all right, Jim."

Jim asks, "Why not fall in love with your best friend?"

"I do love you," Leonard answers immediately, if quietly.

"There's a difference, Bones."

"I know that." Because Jim is clearly waiting to hear the rest, Leonard goes on to say, "You said 'why not'. Why-nots are a game. What am I supposed to think?"

"No," Jim disagrees, "they were never just a game. Even back at the Academy, Bones. Everything we did together—I valued that. I value you. That's what I'm trying to say."

"Jim..."

"Let me finish, okay?"

Leonard closes his mouth and nods.

"I told you back then I did a lot of things I shouldn't have just because I could."

Leonard nods again.

"So you suggested we deliberately choose better from there on out, that we make silly, ridiculous, happy memories instead of ones we would regret." Jim smiles at a particularly good memory. "Remember Barnett's face when he believed there had been a cadet orgy in his office while he was on vacation?"

Leonard smiles too. "I thought he was gonna set a match to the whole building."

"The man's more of a germaphobe than you, Bones."

"I'm a doctor, Jim. See if you don't care about germs when you can't sit comfortably in your captain's chair because of genital warts."

Jim holds up his hands. "Okay, okay." He clears his throat. The mood turns somber again. "My point is... why not this, Bones? Why not us? We're great friends. I think we would make each other happy as partners too."

Leonard looks away. "And have you thought about what happens after?"

"You mean if we don't work out?"

"Exactly. In my experience, great friends don't stay great friends after they realize they make miserable lovers." Leonard adds more quietly, "I wouldn't want to lose you over something like that."

"So don't," Jim tells him, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Let's promise to be friends first—until, you know, we're husbands."

Leonard snorts. "You're getting ahead of yourself there, kid. I'd have to be hopped up on crazy juice to marry you."

Jim grins. "Is that a challenge, Dr. McCoy?"

" _No._ "

"I think that was a challenge."

"Jim, no."

"It was!" Jim pulls out a blank white card and scribbles on it, _Why not marry Jim Kirk?_ He tucks the card under the collar of Leonard's shirt.

"What is _that?_ " Leonard asks, plucking the card out of his clothes and indicating the ball-point pen in Jim's hand.

Jim puts the pen away with a wink, saying, "My secret weapon."

Leonard looks dubious. 

Jim takes the opportunity to throw an arm around the man's shoulders. "So," he asks, "are you in?"

Leonard cuts his eyes at his friend. "I know I'm going to regret this but... why not?"

Jim leans into him. "We don't regret why-nots anymore, remember?"

To Jim's surprise, Leonard says, "I guess that's true," and takes a hold of Jim's chin to press a kiss to the side of Jim's mouth. When he draws back, he looks contemplative.

Jim needs a second to catch his breath. Once he has, he declares, "Not bad but not great. Let's try again. With tongue."

"Nope," Leonard replies, butting Jim away with his shoulder and heading for the door. "Spock was right. You need a firm hand. We can kiss after the second date."

"Wait, what?" Jim says, hurrying after him. "What did Spock say about me? Why were you talking to him? We haven't even been on a first date!"

Leonard turns on him abruptly, produces Jim's pen (which Jim cannot fathom when Leonard got a hold of it), and flips the _Why not marry Jim Kirk?_ card to its blank side to write out something. Once he is done, he hands the card to Jim along with the pen, bobbing his head politely with a "Later, Captain" just before he exits the Ready Room.

Jim looks down at the card and reads it once, twice. Then he laughs, says out loud, "You got it, Bones," and pockets the card to be later stored inside his box of other treasures.

Leonard had written: _Why not court a man properly if you want him to marry you?_

That, Jim thinks, was most definitely a challenge.

And it's a challenge he is convinced he can win.

 

_-Fini_


	3. Bonus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus story for **jim_and_bones** 's 2014 Sweethearts Challenge; I wrote this in addition to the prompts because the story refused to be put aside. Actually, I wrote it first. When I realized it didn't fit I'M YOURS or WHY NOT, I cried a little then finished it anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: enough angst to make you curl into a fetal position. Read only if you like to cry on Valentine's.

They never talk about love. It simply isn't a word they use, an expression in their eyes or a confession they whisper at night in each other's arms. How could it be any of those things? When they started this relationship, they agreed on "Don't love me." Love is to be avoided at all costs. The price for loving is pain.

But Jim has never been one to abide by the rules, even when he means to. He wakes up in a cavern with water dripping into his face and realizes his friend and partner means more to him than anyone else he can think of.

He loves Leonard, and Leonard is dead.

~~~

Jim sits on a rock in the dark, watching the light from his activated beacon shiver into fragments across a pool of water. Occasionally he stirs, restless, and picks a pebble out from a crevice in his perch, plopping it into the water to watch it sink. He had washed his face and hands earlier but the lingering smell of blood is still strong enough to disturb him.

If he wasn't alone, he imagines a hand would have landed on his shoulder in understanding. Leonard had always been quick to yell at him but also quick to provide comfort. 

All Jim can think about now is how he wants to hear Bones say "Captain—"

He jumps, startled by the actual sound of a voice.

It says again, "Captain Kirk?"

Jim slides off the rock and grabs his abandoned communicator, surprised because he had been certain it didn't work.

"Kirk here," he croaks, having not spoken aloud in some time.

But the voice from the communicator repeats mindlessly, "Captain Kirk?"

Jim sits back, letting the useless device dangle from his fingertips. Eventually it goes silent, and he falls back into silence too.

~~~

Jim wakes up cold and hungry and staggers toward the side of his prison that would have been his way out if it hadn't caved in. Digging and scraping at the large boulders gives him something to do. He stops once his fingertips are bleeding. Then he goes to the pool and soaks his hands where the water is icy enough to numb the pain.

The communicator has been talking to him on and off for days. Sometimes it just calls him; at other times it provides tiny snippets of information—but none of which he can bring himself to care about. Today he puts the speaker against his ear because the signal is so faint, the words are merely murmurs. He had drifted off to sleep to those murmurs a little while ago.

It must be Uhura who is talking to him, because at times the flow of words will stop and Jim will hear a humming instead, a melody—almost a lullaby—specific to her people. It's as if she knows he is alone and seeks to ease that for him.

"The ship never made it to Xtal," she is currently whispering in his ear. "As soon as we heard that, Spock turned the Enterprise around."

Spock will take care of the ship, Jim thinks, maybe better than he ever did.

"We know you and Doctor McCoy are down there, Captain. All of us are looking. We _will_ find you, I swear it. I wish—" Her voice catches.

Jim lowers the communicator, feeling his lungs tighten and tighten until he can't force any more air into them. Why can't he breathe?

_C'mon, kid, work through it._

Jim tries. The result is a sputtering wheeze. He thumps a fist against his ribcage hoping to loosen the painful knot there. It doesn't work.

The Bones' voice in his head grows angry: _Breathe, damn it! You're not dying on me!_

 _Bones,_ he thinks, helpless, falling forward slightly as his vision turns gray. _Bones._

 _I know, Jim,_ Leonard would say in turn, _but you have to fight for me. Breathe._

And Jim does, his lungs relaxing enough to let him. The air he pulls in through his mouth is crisp, almost sweet-tasting. He spends several minutes simply appreciating it.

At last, when he is calmer, Jim swipes at his eyes and raises the comm back to his ear.

Static greets him. Uhura is gone.

~~~

His eyesight is a little weird today. There might be a person sitting on the other side of the pool, someone with long, spindly arms and a nearly opaque body that looks like rippling water when a fingertip touches the pool. Jim is afraid to move, lest he disturb it.

Gradually, as he watches, the surface of the water takes on a different hue, not the cold deep black of the rocky bed beneath but something lighter, like the pearlescent sheen of the inside of a seashell. A face rises up toward the surface, stopping just shy of it as a reflection sits behind glass. Jim sees a wave of hair, much darker than his own, and the line of a nose; the eyes, which in his last memory were open and sightless, remain closed in peaceful slumber.

The image melts away as quickly as it had taken shape. The mysterious chameleon fades with it.

Jim comes back to himself to discover he has dragged his body to the edge of the pool. But when he dips his head down to look into the water, he sees two bloodshot eyes staring back at him and is, for a time, transfixed by the agony in them. Then he moves, too abruptly in his disappointment, and the eyes blink.

Jim does not want to look at himself any longer. He eases back and pillows his head on an arm. 

From past experience he knows he is in trouble once the hallucinations start. No wonder he hadn't felt too affected by the cold since he woke up. A fever is the only explanation, and with fevers come imaginings he would never picture in his right mind.

Bones would be so pissed off right now.

Jim's throat tightens. He closes his eyes as they start to water of their own accord.

His regret seems more poignant than ever. If he had been smarter, faster, anything that could have prevented a tragedy... He wishes he had never agreed to take on the mission in the first place, or coaxed his Chief Medical Officer into playing sidekick. 

Hadn't he teased McCoy by saying they would share quarters and have plenty of personal time on the convoy to Xtal?

Bones had smacked him for not thinking with his primary brain but agreed to join him nonetheless, saying something about keeping Jim from making a diplomatic mess because he couldn't keep his pants on for more than five seconds at a time.

Jim had read between the lines and heard, _Yeah, I want to spend time with you too._

That makes Leonard's death his fault.

Jim drapes an arm across his eyes and presses his mouth flat when it trembles.

There have been mistakes and mishaps he has learned to forgive himself for over the years, but he knows this will never be one of them.

~~~

The cavern is full of dream-shapes: not rocks but more long-armed creatures, different sizes—two of them, then four, then eight—all luminescent in the dark. Some appear to be in movement, though when he looks straight at them, they still.

He tries to communicate with these creatures at first, but they don't talk back and his words begin to trip over each other anyway. His face feels hot to the touch, he realizes. Soon his eyes become painfully swollen and difficult to keep open. At last he gives in and closes them, if only to block out the strangeness he feels surrounds him.

There is a sensation against his skin sometime later on, a cold touch or a droplet of water. He cannot tell which and finds he cares even less.

When Jim next wakes, his fever has passed, taking his imaginary cave-dwellers with it.

~~~

The beacon falls prey to time and the lack of an energy source. In the moment Jim comprehends that the signal has died, he grips it terribly hard then shatters it against the nearest rock without remorse.

He will surely die now, he thinks, experiencing a measure of satisfaction.

But in truth, to his great surprise, the beacon does save him after all.

" _I found it, I found it..._ " sputters the broken communicator not long after. " _I don't know how, how, oh god, but it's there—mixed up—yesterday's transmission—Captain? Captain, if you can hear me, we've found you!_ "

Jim can only stare at the happy buzz of chaos filtering through the speaker. That he should be elated is lost on him.

He curls his fingers at his sides. They've grown cold.

~~~

It had been a dream, he thought. A hallucination. A brain malfunction.

Then the drilling starts. 

The sounds are faint in the beginning on the other side of the rock wall, growing steadily louder until the first pebble dislodges and falls, leaving behind a sliver of light. Jim retreats to the opposite side of the water pool and huddles there, feeling strange, like a mole being exposed in its den. 

Then suddenly the light spills inside, washes over him, overwhelming eyes which have grown accustomed seeing only shades of darkness. Jim drops his face into his arms and waits, tensed, for the contact. It comes in the form of a pressure against his arms. Hands pressing material to him, around him. A blanket? A coat?

This person assures him, "Captain, we have you."

"Where's McCoy?" someone standing farther away asks.

Jim lifts his head to look into the faces of his rescuers. As their light spreads and paints the rocky walls and illuminates the depths of the pool in a search for Jim's missing half, the words come from Jim, unbidden: "You won't find him."

Sulu, at the back of the cavern, comes forward and crouches across from the medical officer kneeling beside Jim. "Sir?"

Jim fixes his eyes on the tiny marks of Sulu's rank that dot the neck seam of his tunic. "McCoy," he clarifies, voice soft. "You won't find him."

For a moment, the silence in the cavern is deafening. Then Sulu flips open his communicator in a business-like manner and tells ship-side personnel to lock onto Kirk's signal.

Jim refuses to raise his eyes, lest he recognize the comprehension and restrained grief in the gazes of the men around him. They will stay behind regardless of what order he gives them now, he knows.

They will want to search for their fallen comrade's body.

~~~

At first the ship is unbearably bright and noisy to Jim when he returns. He automatically suppresses the panic it triggers, an old habit coming back to him from years long past when he fought to recover his spirit and mind after the horrors of Tarsus IV. The signs he gives of his discomfort are the tightening of his shoulder blades and the constant whistle of breath through his nose.

No one is in the transporter room who would recognize them.

The medics who are on stand-by try to load him onto a hovering stretcher but Jim shakes his head and refuses the ride. He begins to limp his way to Sickbay instead, feeling in some respect like he has sea legs when he occasionally totters. But Spock, with him every step since the Transporter Room, unobtrusively steadies him as he needs it. Jim doesn't thank him, just simply tells his First to debrief him on what they know so far.

Voice hinting at an unusual amount of concern, Spock responds with "There is nothing to report which cannot wait, Captain."

Jim has no desire for kindness right then. "It wasn't a request, Mr. Spock."

Perhaps hearing something within his superior's emotionless tone, Spock acquiesces and launches into a verbose but coherent report, updating Jim since the time of his and McCoy's departure from the Enterprise. When Spock is finished speaking, Jim is within a private section of the med bay being prepped for examination by M'Benga.

At length, Jim can stand the Vulcan's loaded silence no more and asks M'Benga to give them a moment of privacy.

Spock speaks one word: "McCoy?"

"Dead," Jim answers.

His long-time friend looks away, the control of his grief personified in the stiffness of his back and stone-like features of his face. Then he pivots on the ball of his foot and leaves Jim behind. M'Benga returns shortly thereafter, during which time Jim dares himself not to think at all.

Once the examination is done and Jim is informed he is in no condition to leave the bay, M'Benga states politely, "I want to give you a sedative."

"Go ahead," Jim tells him. The truth is, he thinks his salvation will come only once he is knocked out.

If M'Benga is surprised by the easy manner in which Jim agrees, he says nothing of it.

~~~

He's asleep, and he's dreaming.

The Sickbay is in chaos. Someone has called in with a near-shriek of _he's alive!_ Everyone goes mad. Patients sit up in their beds. Nurses shout nonsensical things.

But Jim is dreaming and presses his hands to his ears. He shakes his head.

Dreams and reality are by far two different things.

~~~

" _Captain? Captain Kirk?_ "

Jim blinks open his eyes, already groping for his communicator, the one that talks of its own accord. Then he realizes why he doesn't have it anymore and drags in a deep breath.

"Captain?" 

He looks to the side to find a petite woman in medical blues standing by his bed. She smiles at him. "Welcome back. How do you feel?"

"How long was I out?" he asks, then coughs to clear his throat.

"A little over twenty-four hours, sir, altogether. When your initial dose of sedative wore off, we gave you a second one."

He almost asks why but decides against it, instead focuses on trying to sit up. His body is weaker than he thought. He supposes he will need to fix that.

"Sir?"

Jim realizes belatedly the nurse had been talking to him. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Would you like to see him?"

"Who?" Spock? No, Jim has no desire to see anyone.

"Why, Dr. McCoy, of course."

For a moment in time there is no noise, no color, nothing. If Jim makes a sound, he cannot hear it.

The body, he realizes. She is talking about the body. His gorge rises.

"N-No," he chokes out.

"All right," she agrees, her expression strange. She moves away from his biobed, adding as she goes, "But he'll want to see you when he wakes up, so try to stay here, okay? I'll get Dr. M'Benga."

Goose flesh rises on Jim's arms.

Something significant happened while he was sleeping. Something—

_He's alive!_

He remembers now, waking up thrashing, screaming the two words for the whole of the ship to hear. People had pinned him. And put him back out.

But, but—

Jim flings away his covers, unmindful of the sudden wailing of any biobed alarms, and staggers into the open section of the Sickbay. He doesn't believe it, can't believe it, can't ever hope for it—

—until he sees the man behind the glass in the IC unit.

Jim falls against the barrier, but it doesn't support him and he slides down it to the cold, hard floor. He stares at the very reason he had been willing to die in a cave in the earth of a little-known planet. Eventually his gazes slips sideways to the shockingly white face reflected in the glass and another angular, pinched face beside it.

"Captain," Spock says, a mere whisper, from where he is kneeling at Jim's side.

Jim closes his eyes.

Spock lifts him like a child to his feet.

"Where?" Jim asks.

"Near the entrance to the mine. As the search party returned to the surface for the exchange, he was simply there."

Jim opens his eyes to stare down at the floor and his bare feet. "How?"

There comes a significant silence. Then, "We were hoping you could tell us."

~~~

"Cave people," McCoy claims in his debriefing report. He's anemic from severe blood loss but otherwise intact and in full control of his mental faculties.

Jim hasn't the courage to look him in the eyes.

It is Scotty sitting on Jim's right who says, "Come again?"

"Cave-dwellers," Leonard repeats patiently. "Granted, my memories from around that time are fuzzy but I swear I wasn't alone. Only..." He frowns.

"Go on," Spock urges. 

"They were humanoid, I guess, but sort of plain in coloring. Gray, almost. I don't know. Like I said, it's all fuzzy."

Jim feels the stares turn to him. "Could be," he murmurs. "They had really long arms."

"Yeah," Leonard agrees, sounding somewhat surprised that Jim might have encountered them too.

"We detected no life signs below the planet's surface."

Leonard spreads his hands, remarking, "And yet..."

"The point does not elude me, Doctor."

"Would it kill you to admit you were wrong, Spock?"

Jim pushes away from the conference table and stands up, startling the others gathered in the room. "Thank you all for your time. Dismissed."

"But, Captain...?" Scotty begins.

"Jim, what're you going to do?"

Spock echoes the same question in a more formal way.

"Nothing," Jim replies. "Whoever, or whatever, lives in the abandoned mines is not our concern. They aren't trapped down there, and we've no right to force them to the surface or invade their homes. They saved our lives, Bones, and while we are grateful, our gratitude is best shown by not interfering. Spock, set a course for the nearest starbase. Uhura, the reports already filed on the incident are to be transmitted to Command without delay."

"And the men who almost killed us?" McCoy wants to know.

 _Who did kill you, Bones,_ Jim doesn't correct. "They'll be in the next quadrant by now—but we know what ship they're on and we know they're a threat to the delegation which was meant to arrive on Xtal. If I could go after them—" _and wipe those bastards from galaxy_ "—I would, but my duty is to this ship. For now, we report in. However, mark my words: if they are so unlucky to cross paths with us again, we deal with them our way."

When no one argues with his decision, Jim once again dismisses his senior commanding officers. This time they obey, filing out of the room until Jim alone remains.

~~~

Days pass into weeks. It seems like nothing much has changed. Life goes on.

But to Jim nothing is the same. He knows Leonard is worried about him. He knows, too, that Leonard worries Jim's problem is one which he won't be able to fix.

Jim would have to agree that nothing can heal the wound inside him. Having his lover alive may have cauterized it but it's still wide-open and raw. Frankly, Jim kind of wants it to stay that way. He needs the reminder that without blind luck, Bones would be dead.

It's rare that they have an evening together. Jim has seen to that, mostly, because while he can meet Leonard's eyes now, he can't hold them. And he certainly can't share affection with a man he can't look at for any length of time.

But tonight Jim makes the mistake of returning to his sleeping cabin early. Leonard has taken to napping in his quarters when he's off shift like the bed is his own. In days past, Jim loved this. Now he dreams Leonard dies in his bed without a word or a sound, and he lives in fear of the moment he discovers the dream is a reality.

At first Jim doesn't realize he isn't alone. The lights in the cabin are on a low setting but he can see well enough. He finds nowadays that he prefers darkness over light, and so does not change it. Stripping off his sweaty shirt from a long run, Jim drags a hand through his short hair, achingly tired and debating on whether or not he should shower or simply sleep.

Then the bathroom door slides open, emitting Leonard in a towel into the room.

Jim freezes, half-in, half-out of the runner of light.

"Hey," Leonard says, going over to the wall with the built-in storage compartments. 

Jim watches, wordless, as Leonard pulls out a pair of pants, drops the towel and puts them on.

How many times have they done this? Dressed in front of each other without care, out of comfort, secure in the knowledge there is only affection coloring their judgement of each other?

Even knowing where the bed is, Jim gropes for it and sinks down onto its edge. A single word lodges in his throat. 

Leonard stops in the process of unfolding a blue tunic as if he senses Jim's distress, calling his name as a question. When Leonard angles his torso towards the bed, the scar tissue across his side is a pale, silvery slash in the dim lighting, a leftover relic from a healing no one can explain.

Staring at it, the unspoken word turns into a hard knot that chokes Jim.

"Jim, is something wrong?" 

Leonard comes to him, then, moving in until their knees are close enough to touch.

"Bones," Jim forces the word out. Then, in defeat, "Everything." 

Fingers drift through his hair. "Do you think you can talk to me now?"

_No._

"Please?"

Jim closes his eyes. "You're—I wish—" He seems incapable of making his thoughts known.

"C'mon, it's okay."

Jim makes a noise that might have been a laugh if it wasn't so hollow-sounding. "You are worth so much more than this," he finally tells his Bones.

"I'm not sure I understand your meaning, kid."

Jim catches Leonard's wrist to still the fingers in his hair and cradles the hand between his own. The contact is so familiar, and yet he's deprived himself of it for so long, it feels like a cold shock. He presses his thumb into Leonard's palm. "You deserve more than this."

Leonard jerks his hand away, a strangeness creeping into his tone. "This what, Jim?"

"Me."

Leonard is silent for some seconds. "You make it sound like you're breaking up with me."

"No," Jim says and, "Yes."

Leonard curls the hand Jim had hoped to hold a while longer into a fist. "Well, which is it?"

Jim looks him in the eyes just briefly. "The second," he answers as steadily as he can. "We should break up."

"Not without a good reason."

"I can give you one but you won't like it."

Suddenly Leonard is angry. "Don't fuck with me on this, Jim. Just say it."

So Jim does.

As he expects, Leonard doesn't react well. The man blanches and steps backward.

"Told you," Jim murmurs, standing up. His body obeys slowly, as though he has endured a three-day beating instead of sitting quietly, if tensely, for the past few minutes. "It's so good of a reason that it scares the shit out of you. Well, it scares me too, Bones." Jim takes a breath. "And I'm sorry, but I don't think either of us can handle this."

" _Why now?_ " the other man whispers. 

"Why do you think?" Jim almost snaps back. "I let you die."

"I didn't die."

He counters, "What, you don't remember that part? Bullshit."

Leonard's mouth presses into a thin line.

Jim pushes to his feet because he needs the movement. "What's worse is that I really mean it... I love you. I love you as a friend, and I love you as more than a friend. Unfortunately it took you _dying_ for me to realize it. God, it's so cliché, Bones, it makes me want to puke."

"Finding out you love me makes you want to puke?"

"You know what I meant."

"Yeah, I do."

Jim stops pacing abruptly, hands flexing. Then he goes over to Leonard's abandoned tunic and picks it up. "What else should I say? Haven't you heard enough?"

But Leonard says to him, "Jim, did you just hear _me_?"

Jim turns to the man he loves too much and offers the shirt. "Here."

Leonard takes it and, much to Jim's surprise, throws it over his shoulder. Then he blows out a breath and, just briefly, purses his mouth. "You've always had more courage than me, Jim. You'll have to forgive me for being shocked."

Jim feels an unexpected wash of relief. Maybe, at the very least, they could stay friends. If Jim could learn to look Leonard in the eyes again, that is.

"The thing is," Leonard goes on to say, "I was shocked because I didn't think you'd love me back."

Jim swallows hard. It's everything he wanted to hear, and everything he dreaded too.

"Why won't you say something? I'm telling you I understand better than you think."

"Bones, don't."

"Why not?" the man demands. "You love me, and I love you. I thought that would be something to celebrate!"

"You _died!_ " Jim yells back. "On my watch. When I should have done _something_ — _fuck_."

"You know what you could have done?" Leonard says, stepping right into his personal space. "You could have taken that knife to the gut for me."

Jim feels sick. _Yes,_ he wants to say. _Yes, why didn't I?_

He doesn't realize he has said that last part aloud until Leonard grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him hard.

"No," Leonard tells him, fiercely. "Never, Jim, never. You never die for me, do you understand?"

"But I should have done more."

"You did," Leonard says, voice shaking now. "You did, darlin'. I told you to press on the wound, and you did."

Jim brings his hands up to clutch at Leonard's arms, his arms shaking as badly as Leonard's voice. In fact, all of him is shaking. "It wasn't enough. You just kept bleeding."

"There wasn't anything else you could have done. I knew that, Jim. I'm a doctor, remember?"

A sob tries to crawl out of Jim's throat, and he pushes from McCoy's arms, forcing himself to regain control as he turns away. "You don't understand. I know it's over, but the fact that I can't change it is the worst part. It's... it's killing me, Bones."

"Jim, let me help you."

"Like you said, when it's this bad, there's nothing you can really do."

"Damn it, Jim."

He hears the heartbreak in Leonard's voice. "I'm sorry. I know an apology isn't enough, but I'll keep saying it."

"I won't give up on you," Leonard promises him.

Jim wishes he would. He just shakes his head. "You should go now."

"I..." 

But Leonard falls silent and, in the periphery of Jim's vision, fetches his shirt from the bed and dons it. Leonard stops just abreast of the door. He sounds tired, strained, as he says, "I want you to talk to somebody. Not me, well, because... not me."

Jim doesn't reply. He knows he has no choice in the matter.

Leonard lingers a moment longer before finally leaving.

Jim lets his head hang. 

This, he thinks, is exactly why they should have never broken their word. Love will always bring pain.

 

_-Fini_


End file.
